Various articles or products are often fed into linear distribution systems to transport or move those articles or products to one or more downstream processing stations. Such linear distribution systems, however, have a number of shortcomings. For example, linear distribution systems generally have a series of gates at various locations along the conveyor. However, since these gates are spread out along the length of the conveyor, product can only be fed to one gate at a time. That is, as product is transported down the conveyor, the leading product enters the first open gate that is encountered. This method of sequentially feeding product into gates positioned along a linear conveyor can reduce the efficiency of the available downstream processing stations, while at the same time increasing the required footprint of the distribution system.
Moreover, while product is being directed to a first gate along the conveyor, processing stations downstream of other gates may be shut down or entered into stand-by modes until the first open gates fill up with product. When these packaging stations come back online or re-start, they are more likely to jam or otherwise experience difficulties than those machines that are running more regularly.
In addition, because the upstream gates are always fed with product first the processing stations associated with those gates tend to receive significantly more product than the processing stations associated with gates further down the line. Thus, over time, the packaging stations receive unequal use and wear out at different rates.